While I love, love, love Melissa Karnaze’s Copyblogger post on how to make Writer’s Block a “Secret Weapon,” there’s like 5% 0f the time when what she describes as writer’s block isn’t quite what I experience.
Her premise: if you’re having trouble saying it, you probably aren’t all that clear on what you want to say.
But what if you know what you want to say, but you’re gooning up the emotion? What if you need a scalpel and your pen feels like a chainsaw?
Well, even though the following may not make any sense, it always works for me:
- Go visit PostSecret.
- Read through the secrets till you find 2-3 really juicy ones. Not juicy as in particularly lurid, but as in wince inducing. Your heart should go out to the person. Or there should be a “pucker factor” in reading their secret.
- Now that you have a few of those, pick one and start imagining the person who wrote it. Create a character, backstory, etc.
- Spend about 10 minutes writing the first several paragraphs or page of a short story that starts with the Post Secret statement and that centers around your character. Make sure to set a timer of some sort.
When the timer goes off you’ll be on the other side of the world from the emotional and mental state you started in. And the borrowed wings of your narrative will fly with you when you go back to writing your copy.
* Special thanks to Holly Buchanan for introducing me to Post Secret
In a restaurant, clean bathrooms portend clean kitchens, or so says the cliche.
Regardless of how reasonable it is or isn’t, we instinctively attempt to confirm a “brand promise” of attention to detail in the kitchen by looking for evidence of it throughout the rest of the restaurant.
We believe in internal consistency - a belief that’s hardly limited to restaurants.
Clean Bathrooms and Your Website’s UVP
“where should the Unique Value Proposition go on my Website?”
People often ask me that, and – with the clean bathroom theory firmly in mind – I usually reply with a question of my own: “where does the chorus or refrain go in a song?”
Sometimes it comes off as a bit of a non-sequitur, but a little guided discovery quickly establishes the following points about song refrains:
- The refrain carries the theme of the song. Even when you can’t remember the name of the song, you’ll usually recall the refrain, because that’s the heart of the song
- The rest of the song fleshes out, substantiates, and supports the refrain. The stanzas and the refrain are intimately connected.
- The refrain is repeated over and over, and in the best songs, each repetition gains meaning and emotional weight from the stanzas that preceded it.
To see how this works online, simply substitute “UVP” for “refrain” and “Website” for “song” and here’s what you get:
- The UVP carries the theme of the Website. In other words the reason visitors would want to do business with you should lie at the heart of your online messaging. If it’s not, you’re spending too much time talking about what you want to talk about rather than what’s important to the customer.
- The rest of the Website should flesh out, substantiate, and support your UVP. People will look to see if you back-up what you claim. If the rest of your site doesn’t jibe with the UVP, you’ll lose credibility and, ultimately, lose the sale.
- The UVP is repeated over and over (though not verbatim or in entirety) from different angles or perspectives, such that the claims and promises gain weight, credibility, and emotional resonance with each click or page.
The Bottom Line:
Treating your UVP as a song refrain helps to insure internal consistency
It forces you to check your own site for clean bathrooms. So when visitors look to corroborate your claims by cross referencing the various elements and pages of your Website, they’ll become increasingly reassured and confident with each click.
For example, if you are a local contractor specializing in completing basement renovations and garage enclosures in half the time of traditional contractors, your Web visitors will expect to see your claimed specialty and value proposition reflected in your:
- prior work history,
- qualifications/certifications
- gallery of projects,
- guarantees,
- testimonials, etc.
If each of those elements speaks to your specialized focus and your half-the-time claims, you’ll win a lot more leads. If they don’t support your UVP, your visitors will likely go elsewhere for their renovations.
Also, if you claim to only hire the best, expect a fair amount of prospective customers clicking through your employment pages to see what your REAL standards of employment are. And you better have “clean bathrooms” because this ain’t theory, I’ve sat and watched visitors do exactly that via analytics and services such as Click Tales, OnTarget, and Tea Leaf.
A Videocast Full of Great “Clean Bathroom” Specifics for Websites
A great video-cast/discussion on this topic was created by my fellow Wizard of Ads Partner, Dave Young, when he discusses the credibility cues he intentionally baked into the Website for Roof Life of Oregon.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.So go take a fresh look at your Website and ask yourself:
- Have you woven a refrain throughout your Website’s messaging?
- How does each page of your site work to substantiate and corroborate your main claims/UVP?
“Do you have any questions?”
Are you and your staff asking that of your prospective customers? Do your surveys ask the same thing?
While your intent is admirable, your phrasing just might be hampering sales, and I’d like to suggest a far more effective variation.
But to understand the power of the variation, you have to understand what’s wrong with the question you’re currently asking.
The Magic of Word Association
It comes down to word associations. Our associations – our emotional reactions to words – often have very little to do with a word’s dry definitions. Take “discriminate.” Are the host of emotions and mental images evoked by that word explained by the dictionary definition: to note a difference; to make a distinction?
And even though the two words have similar definitions, is it really that surprising that everyone wants to be normal but no one wants to be average?
So, what are the associations behind the phrasing: “Do you have any question?”
Well, let’s skip to the word “question” itself. A question is usually imagined as fully-formed, well-articulated, and for the most part, direct. And emotionally speaking, asking a question is often felt as revealing or implying ignorance or weakness. And then there’s the presupposition of the “Do you” part of your phrasing, which assumes the prospect may not have any questions.
Ask me if I have any questions and chances are I’ll say, “no.” I probably haven’t formulated my thoughts yet, and quite frankly, I don’t want to sound like a bozo in front of the sales staff. “No” is safe. I like safe; I’d bet most of your prospects feel the same way, too.
How to take the negative associations away from asking a question
But what if you ask me about my CONCERNS? Ahhhh. Now I have permission to be vague, to take my time…and to not feel like I’m admitting ignorance.
If I’m expressing concerns (rather an asking a question), I can tell you about emotional things like doubts.
Did you think wordsmithing was only important to your advertising copy? Is your sales team hearing “No” more often than you’d prefer? Try a little wordsmithing; have them ask, “So what are your concerns?”
Applications to Online Copywriting
And if you’re reading this as a copywriter, ask yourself this:
Are you expecting visitors to use formal navigation in order to arrive at your question-answering content?
Or are you anticipating the associational flow of the conversation and supplying embedded links and embedded page elements like videos, testimonials, and pictures that would allow visitors to quickly drill down on areas of concern without having to explicitly acknowledge and consciously think about those concerns?
Does your copy address concerns, or just answer questions?
Sometimes an audience’s resistance to buying has nothing to do with intellectual uncertainty. They understand what’s in it for them and they “get” the logical arguments, but they’re still not persuaded to act.
In these cases, audience doubt stems from an emotional confusion. The facts may support your claim, but those facts clash with the reader’s known reality. This is when you need a (predominantly) emotional message, rather than an intellectual one.
- Intellectual ads present the audience with new information
- Emotional ads cause the audience to feel differently about information they already know.
Emotional ads work their magic by reconciling your claims to the audience’s self-image and world-view, evaporating emotional uncertainty in the process and leaving your audience ready to act.
The Wizard of Ads Saves Christmas w/ an Emotion-Driven Ad
A masterful example of how to do this is Roy Williams’ ad for Heisenberg’s Jewelers. Before looking at the ad itself, here’s a little background on the emotional conflict Roy had to overcome:
Heisenberg’s Jewelers had been in the same building on Main Street in Cabbage Valley for 105 years. A facelift 7 years earlier had given the store white carpet, walnut paneling and a huge chandelier in a high, domed ceiling. Heisenberg’s was the Sistine Chapel of jewelry stores. Not a problem, except that Cabbage Valley is the turnip capital of the world, a little farming community of about 45,000 people. Even the wealthiest of Cabbage Valley’s farmers felt they weren’t dressed well enough to enter that store. Heisenberg’s was truly an intimidating place.
Now imagine your goal is to get these farmers to come in and buy jewelry. What you’re facing is NOT a lack of knowledge or insight: everybody in town knows that Heidelberg’s is THE premier jewelry store in town. An intellectual perspective would be suicide.
What you’re up against is a clash of images. The farmer already has an image of who he is, and it’s one that involves coveralls, honest work, and maybe a little dirt. In other words, an image that’s in direct conflict with the idea of walking into the ritziest store in town.
So, Roy re-framed the farmer’s self-image and made it 100% congruent with the act of walking into the Sistine Chapel of jewelry stores. In fact, he made walking into that store an absolute must for the farmer who wished to keep his self-image intact. Here’s the ad:
“Ladies, many of you will be fortunate enough this Christmas to find a small, but beautifully wrapped package under your tree bearing a simple gold seal that says ‘Heisenberg’s.’ Now you and I both know there’s jewelry in the box. But the man who put it there for you is trying desperately to tell you that you are more precious than diamonds, more valuable than gold, and very, very special. You see, he could have gone to a department store and bought department store jewelry, or picked up something at the mall like all the other husbands. But the men who come to Heisenberg’s aren’t trying to get off cheap or easy. Men who come to Heisenberg’s believe their wives deserve the best. And whether they spend 99 dollars or 99 hundred, the message is the same: Men who come to Heisenberg’s are still very much in love… We just thought you should know.”
See what I’m talking about? Rather than thinking, “I’m a farmer,” the ad caused men to think “I’m a devoted husband (who doesn’t want to be sleeping in the dog house come Christmas)”
Don’t Mess with Texas: the power of an emotion-driven campaign
Another fine example of this is the Don’t Mess with Texas campaign, as explained in the Heath brothers must-read book Made to Stick.
Texas had a litter problem — and it wasn’t caused by Austin environmentalists driving around in their Volvos. Nor was it caused by people who “didn’t know any better.” Texas surmised that their litter problem was caused by citizens who felt that a modern sensitivity to litter was a little too mamby-pamby-ish for them. It conflicted with their self-image.
So the Ad agency elected NOT to run a typical PSA presenting new facts about the damage litter causes. Instead, they re-framed concern for litter into a matter of Texas-pride, where manly-man Texan celebrities came out against littering, saying “Don’t mess with Texas.” They reconciled the conflicting images, and the incidence of roadside litter decreased 72% between 1986 and 1990.
A 4-step process for creating emotional messaging:
1. Find the source of your prospects cognitive dissonance. In order to do this, you have to see your customer real, having contextualized their need for your product within the entire scope of their lives and self-image. Fully modeling your audience allows you greater insight into how they see themselves and what their preconceptions and concerns actually are.
2. Find an image that reaffirms that preconception. That’s right, reaffirms. Pointing out the limits within which the reader’s understanding holds true and pointing out the limits beyond which they are false are both exercises in defining limits. But the emotional distance between the two approaches separates success from failure.
If you really want to convince a kid that fluids move faster through a narrowing (a la the bernoulli’s principle), acknowledging that toothpaste doesn’t work that way (and explaining why) makes things a lot easier. Similarly, Roy’s ad reconfirms the idea that Hiesenberg’s is an uncomfortable place to shop, and the Don’t Mess with Texas ads reconfirmed the “cowboy” image of its target audience.
3. Now, either introduce a new mental image that re-frames your message & reconciles the conflict Roy introduces a new self-image for the farmer’s in his audience: that of a faithful and loving husband. The State of Texas introduced a new mental image for the “bubbas” watching the TV campaign: that of a Texan’s Texan taking litter as an assault on Texas-pride. Both images re-framed how the audience felt about the proposed action, whether that action was walking into a scary-expensive jewelry store or refraining from littering.
4. Make sure your new image already fits the audience’s self-image or mental model. If you want full conviction from your readers, you’ll have to leave them feeling as though this new way of looking at things is really a confirmation of what they’ve truly believed all along.
You can’t convince farmers that they aren’t farmers or that they’re really sophisticated suburbanites. You have to pick a self-image that they are already comfortable with, like that of a devoted husband. And you can’t convince bubba the cowboy that he’s really a crunchy granola type. But you can convince him that cowbows have always respected and protected their own land.
[Emotioneering is a trademarked word coined by Hollywood screenwriting and video game guru David Freeman. I've co-taught with David on a few occasions and can't recommend his material highly enough, especially his book, Creating Emotion in Games.]
To move the needle on the “who gives a sh**” dial, you need to know what’s at stake.
The needle measures the emotional stakes raised by your messaging, as perceived by your audience. If you don’t address, reference, or touch upon what’s at stake, little else matters.
Getting in shape or getting stronger may be a product benefit for an exercise program, but that’s not what’s at stake for the prospective customer. In order to understand what’s at stake, you have to contextualize the desire for the product within the life of the prospect.
What A Charles Atlas Ad Can Teach You About Moving the Needle
A perfect example of contextualizing desire is the classic Charles Atlas ads created by Charles P. Roman. Getting publicly humiliated in front of your girlfriend while she watches a bully kick sand in your face puts a completely different spin on “working out” than heart-health and longevity doesn’t it?
Now we know what’s at stake: the prospect’s manhood. Hence the power of the famous headline: “The Insult that Made a Man Out of Mac”
Do you see how much more emotionally galvanizing that headline is compared to a garden-variety pitch about the strength building benefits of “dynamic tension” workouts?
This old comic book ad is a wonderful example not only because of the searing mental imagery, but because it provides the first secret key:
Key #1 – The stakes are always about the customer’s self-identity; will he maintain and grow his self-image/ego or will he suffer in the face of adverse reality?
And the second secret key follows on from the first one, because if what’s at stake is the customer’s self image, then:
Key # 2 – The hero of the ad has to be the customer, not the product
If the customer is the most emotionally invested in the outcome and has the power to determine the outcome, who else could possibly be the hero?
Think about that Charles Atlas Ad again: who ended up kicking butt? Mac – the thinly veiled stand-in for the reader – was the star of the ad; he was the one who transformed himself from a 97-pound weakling into a muscle-laden stud – the product just helped him get there.
Back when Charles P. Roman penned his first Atlas Ad, there were any number of muscle men selling courses by mail order, guys like Joe Bonomo. If that name doesn’t ring any bells for you, and you can’t recall any of the others off the top of you head, it’s largely because the other guys either made themselves or their products the star of their ads. The Atlas Ads made the customer the hero and they’re still selling courses to this day!
Want to move the needle?
- Speak to customer emotions stemming from self-image. Contextualize the desire in terms of common scenarios. Understand what’s really at stake.
- The feature might be an easy, learn-at-your-own-pace musical instrument course
- The benefit might be mastering the piano in one’s spare time
- The growth of self image might be the transformation from a musical embarrassment to an accomplished (and admired) musician
- Provide a searing mental image of the customer kicking butt in the role they already desire to see themselves fulfilling. Make the customer the star, not the product.
Stay tuned for the follow-up post on how Temperament Affects Self-Image
16
Oct
A little late-Friday link love and interesting blog posts, videos, etc. Enjoy:
- Life Lessons from an Ad Man – If you’re involved in Marketing and Advertising in any way, I recommend this TED talk. Hat tip to John Morrow on tweeting this one.
- Google’s Time on Page is Wrong – This one is an eye opener and well worth the quick and well-illustrated read. Also, Click Tale has a free version of its software/service – get videos of visitor activity for free!
- Update – Here’s a Rebuttal to Click Tale’s claims by Brian Clifton, former head of Google Analytics, EMEA
- The Myth of the Page Fold – This one was sent to me by Bryan Eisenberg and it’s well worth reading.
- Eye Movement Analysis of Text-Based Web Page Layouts – Strictly for the hard-core web and user-testing geek.
- Call to Action Buttons: Examples and Best Practices – Smashing Magazine does a (characteristically) nice job of this one.
- The Sideways L: How to Use Misdirection to Make Your Readers Laugh – Copyblogger continues its long tradition of must-read content.
- Direct Mail: What REALLY Goes Through the Female Customer’s Mind – Michele Miller takes you through some women’s reactions to a Direct Mail piece making the rounds in Scottsdale, AZ. Get the brutal truth.
- Estee Lauder Creates a Powerful Social Media Campaign – My friend and former colleague, Holly Buchanan, discusses a Social Media Campaign worth watching and learning from. Feel free to add your own, must-read/view content in the comments.
David imagined making love to Bathseba before ever taking the first step to seduce her.
And so it is with all of us: we never take an action without “test driving” it in our imagination first; we want to see what’s gonna happen and what it’ll feel like. It’s the same compulsion that causes us to click the lights on in a room before we walk into it.
So it always surprises me how often Websites fail to turn the lights on for their visitors. How can a prospect confidently take action if she’s uncertain about the results? So here’s a quick and dirty checklist for ya:
The top 4 ways Websites leave visitors in the dark:
1) Forms that don’t explicitly tell visitors what will happen after the visitor hits “send.”
You may think most visitors would assume what would happen, but half-acknowledged doubt routinely kills conversion. So explicitly tell visitors what will happen if they fill out the form and hit send. For instance, on my own contact form, I tell visitos that the form will send an e-mail directly to my in box and that I’ll respond to that e-mail within a business day or two, if not sooner. I also give visitors an option to e-mail me directly or call, thereby helping them to formulate alternate or back-up scenarios.
Other stuff to keep in mind:
- If it’s a download, e-book, or white paper form, let people know if the button will automatically begin the download, will take them to a new page, or will send them an e-mail with a link for downloading the paper.
- For e-books and white papers, merchandise the download! Show them the cover. Give ‘em a glimpse of the table of contents. Tell them how long it is. Provide a sense of value for the content you’re offering.
- Re-assure visitors of your intentions for their info. If there is going to be a follow-up, be explicit about what kind of follow up – who will make contact and by what medium. Better yet, give visitors a choice on how they would prefer to be contacted.
2) “Buy Now” buttons that take you to product details rather than adding an item to cart
Many “buy now,” “book now,” and other call-to-action buttons really only take the visitor to a “details” or “learn more” type page, rather than placing an item in the cart of initiating a checkout process. Not only does this mislead the visitor, but it kills micro-conversion rates since most visitors aren’t ready to add an item to cart (or book the rental, or whatever) until they’ve first seen the details.
People don’t like commitment, so it’s best not to make it seem as if you’re asking for more commitment than you really are. This is why Amazon used to have a “you can always remove it later” note on their add to cart button; they were smart enough to try to minimize the perceived commitment – not add to it!
3) Websites that don’t provide timelines
This is especially important for Websites selling a service because you are likely delivering value over time and there’s also some transition period between paying you and getting set-up and everything. In other words, before pulling the trigger, most prospects will want to know:
- What the first week of working with you will bring for them
- What the first month will be like
- Who they will be working with within your company
- How soon until they notice results/ROI
- What will the payment schedule look like
- What your methodology is like and what they’ll need to prepare for
Not providing clear, imaginable answers to these questions is like turning down an opportunity to seduce the imagination of your customer. Do yourself a favor and make sure your copy mentally walks your prospects through the process of doing business with you.
4) Copywriting that doesn’t carry the value forward in time
The 3 highest praises a product or service might get from a customer are:
- It saved my life
- It changed my life
- It was money well spent
If you noticed a falling off on the third item, don’t let that distract you 
Focus on the fact that all of those commendations are made by someone looking back on their purchase. And that means your copy will be a lot more persuasive if you HELP the prospective customer imagine herself looking back on the decision to buy while feeling any one of those three reactions/emotions.
Ideally, you’d want product/service reviews or testimonials from customers to help you carry the value forward in time. You may also want pictures of items holding up to hard use, sort of like CC Filson use to be famous for. But copywriting is always available to help your visitors imagine long-term satisfaction from their purchase.
Confident Visitors = Converting Visitors
While there are more ways to leverage this principle the essence always remains the same: make it easy for your customer to imagine taking the action you want her to take. Eliminate any unresolved concerns and replace them with mental images that inspire her confidence in doing business with you.
“Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.”
- G.K. Chesterton
Consider it a trained incapacity.
The more comfortable you are in big cities, the more you become habituated not to make eye contact with the homeless, the panhandlers, and the guys hawking newspapers on the street. Eventually, you pretty much just screen ‘em out.
So if you’re the ad guy confronting this, how do you get past it? More importantly, how do you talk about it without making your audience uncomfortable and eager to avoid your message in the future?
Check it out:
Lessons to Take With You
- Your audience has as many mental blindspots as anyone else, so don’t ignore the conditioned irrationalities inherent in your or your client’s industry or market – probe for them! Knowing them will help you write better copy and even formulate better value propositions to begin with.
- When you are forced to work against a conditioned irrationality, never rely on logic or syntax to make your point. Ditch any messaging that starts with something like “No one likes to think about the homeless…” In those situations people often forget the syntax, nuance, and context – they only recall (and pay attention to) the images.
- Where possible, let your mental images be the argument, just as the ghostly transparency of the homeless guy WAS the persuasion - no caption needed. If your message is only remembered through a simple story format, the vivid mental images will carry most of the meaning and emotion. Make sure you have vivid mental images and that they’re sufficient to carry the core of your message.
A great written example of this technique
My partner and marketing mentor, Roy H. Williams, wrote this ad to illustrate an editing technique, but I think it works well as a text-based counterpart to the video you just saw:
“You see him a block away. He sees you, too.
The night feels colder, darker. The streetlamps cast shadows you wouldn’t have noticed if you were walking with friends.
But you have no friends.
The stranger continues toward you, hands inside a long coat. He’s looking at you, reading you well, knows you’re scared.
You can almost see his chest expand with pride.
Seven feet away, you have only seconds to decide. You hear his breathing, watch his eyes bearing down on you. The sidewalk isn’t wide enough.
But they weren’t thinking of you when they built this sidewalk.
This sidewalk was built for him.
One foot away, you hold your breath, close your eyes.
Head down, you brush past him, embarrassed. He hops in a fine car, shaking his head and suggests you get a job.
You wish you could.
290,000 Canadians are frightened, homeless, and hungry.
The United Way can help. Will you help the United Way?”
Did you see all those mental images flash before your imagination? Did you notice how Roy forces you to look through the eyes of the homeless man – forces you to see the truth rather than just intellectually acknowledge it. And do you see how the sequence of images IS the persuasion? Good. Now all you have to do is produce those effects in your own work
P.S. Hat tip to Madvertising for covering and turning me onto the featured television ad.
Consumer Reports rarely endorses the same products that enthusiast magazines do. They rarely pick the same car that, say, Car and Driver might, or select the same stereo that Audiophile would deem a “best buy.”
Why is that?
Because Consumer Reports tries to objectively calculate the “sweet spot” on the Quality-to-Price Ratio, while enthusiasts give more weight to subjective subtleties and refinements; things like aesthetics, ergonomics and brand affinity. Such things aren’t as big a factor for Consumer Reports when they’re trying to help you find “the most X for your money.”
Enthusiasts go beyond the point of so-called diminishing returns because, to them, the return doesn’t feel diminished.
The Perceived Value Curve
Just to make this as clear as possible, I graphed it…
As you can see on the chart, Consumer Reports looks for products that sit on the inflexion point, that spot on the curve just before it gets too steep. They do this because their audience wants an objective, substantiated and dispassionate analysis of which brand/product offers the best bang for the buck. They’re looking for those 85%-as-good-but-half-the-price products.
From “Consumer” to Enthusiast
Unlike the Consumer Reports crowd, enthusiasts are more conscious of a product’s refinements, or lack thereof.
The enthusiast’s minimum standards are higher than average. Audiophiles can distinguish between a CD recording and a 192-bit encrypted MP3 file. Driving enthusiasts appreciate the smooth clutch and slick jolts of a great manual transmission. Wine connoisseurs can anticipate the blackberry notes and soft minerality of their favorite Cab Franc
This is why acquiring a taste for expensive wines, stereos and cars can sometimes “ruin you” for lesser quality goods, because as Kathy Sierra insists, “Learning increases resolution.” Enthusiasts continue to perceive noticeable, worthwhile benefits well beyond the normally perceived point of diminishing returns.
How to use this in your copy
So, if you can’t substantiate your product’s superiority in a no-nonsense Consumer Reports-style manner, your best bet may be to write copy that evokes the Enthusiast’s experience.
When you create a high-resolution experience with your Web copy, you help the average, uninitiated consumer picture themselves as enthusiasts, which in turn helps them justify paying more for the service or item.
Back in 2008 when I first wrote this article, Fuji’s F30 Compact Camera was a perfect example. The F30 had rather unimpressive specs (6 megapixels with a 3X zoom) and had supposedly been supplanted by the newer F40 and F50 models — but it was STILL selling for between $220 and $300, which was as much or more than either the 12 megapixel F50 or the 8 megapixel Canon SD850.
Why is it commanding so high a price?
Because enthusiasts had embraced the F30 for its unmatched ability to take high ISO and low-light photos. At the time, it was the only pocket camera able to take really great low-light shots. So as soon as a retailer “sold” a consumer on that ability, the lower megapixel count no-longer mattered. Smart copywriters could have focused in on this “hidden” ability/refinement of the F30 in order to raise its perceived value.
Roy Williams gives an example of copy that does just that:
In this brilliant Monday Morning Memo, Roy writes this (made up) sample copy which perfectly illustrates my point:
“The prettiest camera in this price class has a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. But the shutter speed of the ugly Canon PowerShot S500 is a superfast 1/60th of a second, allowing you to take fabulous photos in low-light situations. Your indoor photos will look rich and vibrant when all the others look dark and grainy. And your nighttime photos will make people’s eyes bug out. Beautiful contrast and luminance, even without the flash. This camera can see in the dark. Take a picture of your lover in the moonlight. It will become your favorite photo ever. And that superfast shutter speed is also very forgiving of movement. That’s why no one ever replaces their PowerShot S500. Go to your local pawnshop and see if you can find one. We’re betting you can’t. But you will see several of that “prettier” camera available cheaper than dirt. So if you’re looking for a great price on a sleek-looking camera, that’s probably where you should go.”
Who wouldn’t want a camera like that?
And if copy alone won’t do the trick, think about staging live events, webinars, streaming videos… whatever it takes to show a glimpse of the hi-res experience. (Here’s another example from Kathy Sierra.)
Overcoming Conditioned Irrationalities
Very often in competitive industries, certain specs get distorted in comsumers’ minds as being, the only thing that really matters. In cameras, that feature is megapixel count, but this consumer symptom ain’t unique to cameras, it happens in everything from granite countertops to jewelry to kitchen knives to computers. Just try explaining why Macs are worth the premium to a spec and price-conscious PC-buyer
In fact, I’ve heard it said (probably in jest) that there’s only 2 real business models:
- We give $5 haircuts (maximum spec per $)
- We FIX $5 haircuts (Real value / all the subjective goodness most people “in the know” want)
While I may not fully agree with that, it certainly clarifies the point: building perceived value often means overcoming the “conditioned blindness” around “the one spec that matters.” A conditioned blindness that often requires getting burned to break free from.
So for companies using business model #2 who would like to expand market share beyond the once-burned crowd, (re)creating the enthusiast’s experience and dramatizing the benefits beyond the specs is usually the surest and best way to create Perceived Value.
[The "From the Vault" series is an attempt to spotlight some of my older Grok posts that remain relevant for today's readers. As always, I'm open to suggestions, if you'd like me to re-visit a topic of interest to you]
My confession? Even though my copy always had great headlines, my blog posts frequently didn’t.
I wasn’t (yet) struck by the need for trouble – and without a hint of taboo, or a challenge to the norm, or a perceived conflict, or at the very least a paradox, most headlines just never get off the ground.
Here’s why there has to be a sense of trouble living at the heart of your headline:
Your headline needs to hook the reader into reading your “story,” and stories are created by and live off of conflict. In fact, another phrase for trouble is “story appeal.”
Your goal: entice the reader with a hint of conflict, and then she “has” to click through so she can know how the conflict is resolved and what kind of transformation takes place as a result.
4 Ways to Create Conflict in your Headlines:
Technique #1 – Refer to an unseen action or back-story that hints at, or includes, trouble
This one is a favorite of novelists and short story writers. Here’s a classic opening sentence from Farenheit 451: “It was a pleasure to burn.” Whoah, Nelly, right? Who is burning what and why are they taking so much pleasure in it? That enjoyment reeks of trouble, because the only things normal people take pleasure in burning are cigars and red fire ant mounds. And some might question the fire ant part
So here are some examples of Copyblogger and Wonderbranding* headlines that use this technique
- One Big Way to Avoid a Headline Fail – To me, this one implies a “lesson learned” story behind it.
- What a Drunk Swiss Guy Can Teach You About Handling Criticism – Gotta be some back-story to this one, right? And where there are drunk guys there’s usually trouble…
- Confessions of a Comment Addict – “Confessions of” anything requires a backstory involving some kind of “sin”/trouble.
- The Most Horrible Blog Post Ever – Do I have to explain this one?
- Turning Leaf Wine Resists the Soccer Mom – Definitely a story behind this one, and the resist part seems to promise some kind of conflict, right?
Technique # 2 – Use paradox, a challenge to expectations, and “negative” promises
With this technique the trouble involves conflicting ideas in the mind of your reader. You’re challenging how they normally see or think of the world, or at least your blogging topic. Break reader’s guessing mechanism to shake them awake. Create the itch to know and to reconcile the incongruent by following the example of these great headlines:
- How Cross-Dressing Makes You a Better Blogger – Um, how the #$%!@! does cross-dressing relate to blogging? And how can you not click through to find out?
- Kill Your Good Ideas – Huh? Why would I want to do that?
- Can Your PowerPoint Presentation Rival TV Marketing? – PowerPoint as good as a TV ad – are you kidding?
- Write What You Don’t Know – Hey, that’s the opposite of the cliché, right?
- How Penny Pinching Can Improve Your Marketing to Women Strategy – Who ever heard of penny pinching attracting women?
- Why Everyone Should Grow Up Poor – There’s definitely got to be a story that explains this seemingly left-field statement, right?
Technique # 3 – Confront and offer to explain or fix your readers’ afflictions
The home of the “Do you make these mistakes in English” and the “How to” class of headlines, both of which are usually sure-fire templates. The key to this technique is to hone in on a genuine, sleep-killing fear or problem plaguing your readership – and of course to have an explanation or solution. ”Why No One Links to Your Best Posts (And What to Do About It)” is a perfect example of that.
This category is straightforward enough that I’m canning the comments after the examples, OK?
- Do Your Readers Secretly Think You’re a Liar?
- Why No One Links to Your Best Posts (And What to Do About It)
- Do you know who’s killing your email marketing?
- When Web Analytics Lie
- Are Your E-mails Coming Up Short?
Technique #4 – Leave the trouble implied by your promised benefit
All positive headlines fall into this category. But positive headlines have to at least imply and address a real audience need, right? There has to be some dissatisfaction within your reader for them to see the appeal in the benefit. This one is great when a direct statement of the problem might be insulting. Take the headline, “Four Ways to Be More Interesting” for example; do you really want a headline that asks “Do people find you boring?”
Again, here are a few examples:
- S.P.E.E.D. Writing: 5 Tips to Double Your Writing Productivity – Is content creation a bottleneck?
- How I Got 294 Comments With One Blog Post – Is your blog comment poor?
- Internet Marketing for Smart People – What does that say about regular Internet Marketing?
- 3 Quick and Dirty Holiday Hints for Procrastinating E-tailors – They’re not saying you’re a procrastinator, but these optimization tips would solve your problems if, somehow, time has gotten away from you
While the idea of trouble living at the heart of story is a universal observation, my classification of techniques is largely personal and certainly not exhaustive, so I’d love to know what you think. If you see that I missed a category, or have some great examples of your own to share, please feel free to comment.
* I chose to use a lot of Copyblogger examples because: a) Copyblogger is well known both for publishing great headlines, and for offering awesome “how-to write headlines” content; and b) it’s easier to collect headlines from one, rich source than to scour the blogosphere looking for examples. Other source material and headlines were also taken from Wonderbranding, Men With Pens, Psychotactics, Get Elastic, and Roy Williams’ Monday Morning Memo. All readers are welcome to post additional examples in the comments.